Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

The Corcoran Gallery's trustees, in a brief filed today, argued that Save the Corcoran's 40-page complaint and petition to scotch the planned merger with George Washington University and the National Gallery "amounts to 'obstruction for the sake of obstruction' that would disrupt the coming school year for art students and force the sale of artworks to pay for operations," … [Read more...] about “Egregious Mismanagement”: Save the Corcoran’s Serious Allegations in Court Filing

Given my space limitations, there were many details about the Clark Art Institute's expansion that didn't make it yesterday into my Wall Street Journal piece (nor into my CultureGrrl blog post). So let's return for another look at the good, the bad and the ugly to be discovered while exploring the Clark's much enhanced campus: THE GOOD Yesterday, I barely mentioned … [Read more...] about More on Expanded Clark Art Institute: Added Art, Hidden Entrance, Unintended Water Feature

More on this here. My largely positive review in tomorrow's Wall Street Journal, Striving for Grand-Scale Intimacy (online now), did not cause the evacuation of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. A regional power outage was the culprit. A spokesperson for the museum, whom I had contacted late this afternoon for fact-checking, told me that the entire … [Read more...] about Companion Slideshow for My WSJ Piece on Reimagined (and today evacuated) Clark Art Institute

UPDATE: This just in from the D.C. Attorney General's Office, in response to my query: "We are not taking any position on the Corcoran’s petition now (nor on the Save The Corcoran’s petition)." Save the Corcoran, the ad hoc advocacy group, today announced that it has filed a complaint and petition to intervene in the Corcoran Gallery's cy près case that seeks the D.C. Superior … [Read more...] about Save the Corcoran Files Complaint and Petition to Intervene in Cy Près Case UPDATED

Candace Smith, George Washington University's assistant vice president for media relations, responds to Do You Know the Way to Cy Près? What’s Wrong with Corcoran’s Court Petition, in which I quoted the university's student newspaper regarding the possible pricing for new Corcoran students and possible new course requirements: It's important to remember that most of GW's … [Read more...] about BlogBack: George Washington University on Its Plans for Corcoran College

I'm no stranger to cy près arguments, having attended the court hearing for the Barnes Foundation that paved its way to Philadelphia. Cy près is legal lingo describing petitions that request court permission to deviate from a donor's written stipulations. D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert Okun is scheduled to hold a hearing at 2:30 p.m. on July 18, Courtroom 317, regarding the … [Read more...] about Do You Know the Way to Cy Près? What’s Wrong with Corcoran’s Court Petition UPDATED

I probably wouldn't have visited the recently opened 9/11 Memorial Museum, on the site of the destroyed Twin Towers, had I not been asked by my Wall Street Journal editor to do a piece on the preservation and conservation of the battered, mangled objects that were presciently preserved during the cleanup of the Ground Zero. Some 1,000 artifacts, from a collection of about … [Read more...] about My Wall Street Journal Article on Conservation at the 9/11 Memorial Museum (with slideshow)

UPDATE: Almost immediately after I posted this, the Cooper Hewitt's website returned to functionality, hopefully this time for good. In yesterday's post on the renewed and renamed Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, I wrote that the website for this technologically souped up institution seemed to be down. The museum's spokesperson told me I was wrong at that it was … [Read more...] about Tech-Centric Museum Without a Functioning Website? What Happened to CooperHewitt.Org? UPDATED

More on this here. It's way too early to review the renewed and renamed (but not yet reinstalled) Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (formerly, "Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum"). After a protracted three-year closure, it will reopen on Dec. 12. One thing that I can assuredly say right now is that the former Andrew Carnegie Mansion has great bones. The highlight, … [Read more...] about Souped-Up Cooper Hewitt: Interactive Pen, Newark-Exiled Collection (with video) CORRECTED

When will the Association of Art Museum Directors wake up and realize that its sanctions against museums that flout its deaccession standards have little or no power over financially desperate museums lacking strong professional governance? As you've probably already heard, AAMD today announced that it had sanctioned the Delaware Art Museum for its sale yesterday at … [Read more...] about Damning DAM: AAMD Sanctimoniously Sanctions the Delaware Art Museum

How many times have you gazed at those stairs and wished you could ascend? My favorite aspect of the Frick's expansion plans won't occupy any more space on E. 70th Street, won't need government approvals, will greatly enhance the visitor experience and should attract nothing but plaudits from critics who (like me) are starting to grumble about some aspects of the Davis Brody … [Read more...] about Frick Expansion Bonus: Opening the Upstairs Rooms (with slideshow and live tweets)

More on this here. Following in the footsteps of the Morgan Library and Museum, another New York jewel-box museum established by a Gilded Age mogul/collector---the Frick Collection, founded by Henry Clay Frick---has outgrown its space and plans to expand. But without mentioning the Morgan, the Frick's press release announcing the expansion yesterday suggests that the … [Read more...] about Beaux Arts on Botox: The Frick Collection’s Planned Expansion

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) was not providing any advance details regarding its "major Grand Bargain announcement," planned for later this morning. After getting a heads-up from the museum on Friday about the planned announcement, I assumed it might have something to do with fundraising successes. At least some (if not all) of the news was leaked early to Detroit … [Read more...] about Detroit Exploits: Today’s Grand Bargain Announcement (plus Detroit Institute’s more aggressive legal stance)

The inscrutable Italian courts may have once again delayed their decision on the Getty Bronze case, but that doesn't mean CultureGrrl needs to hold off any longer from reporting about Getty Museum director Timothy Potts' plans to thoroughly overhaul the installation of his institution's antiquities holdings in the Getty Villa, Pacific Palisades, where the contested "Victorious … [Read more...] about My Q&A with Timothy Potts: Reinstalling the Getty Museum’s Antiquities (and more on the Getty Bronze)